In the meantime, the women, left in the village on shore, have been far from idle. As soon as the husband has gone off for the day the wife sets about her domestic affairs. First, she rolls up the bedding and tidies the sleeping bench. The next job is to sweep the hoar-frost from the window and the cupola, to prevent the dripping of any moisture, and then to sweep up the floor—littered, likely enough, with the remains of a good feed overnight. These duties are performed with a brush made of the outspread wings of a duck or raven; it might almost be called a double-bladed brush. The backs are sewn together and the upper bones form the handle. Such a contrivance is a very handy affair altogether, and will last quite a long time.

The next task is to prepare a quantity of blubber for oil. This is pulped with a bone hammer or koutak, and the fuel so obtained is suspended over the shallow lamps in such a way as to dip into them and keep them supplied. New wick is fashioned from dried moss and cotton plant trimmed upon the lamps. Next comes the stew for supper. The Eskimos have only one way of cooking meat, and that is stewing it in the [98]stone “kettles” already described. These are partly filled with sea water for the sake of the salt, a quantity of seal’s blood is added, and then comes the meat. The whole thing hangs simmering over the lamps all day, and by the time the men come back at night a reeking hot meal is ready, rich, nourishing, and as tender as a sharp-set hunter could desire.

Water is the next consideration. The Eskimo housewife hauls it in skin buckets from the nearest stream, bailing it up through a hole in the ice; or, failing that, she brings in the ice itself, or snow, and sets it to melt over a spare lamp. These people are thirsty souls, and water is hard to come by in the winter. Every drop that can be obtained is used for drinking or cooking, so that washing (except the hands and face), is dispensed with perforce of arctic circumstance. Fresh water ice melts more quickly than beaten snow, and it is an interesting fact that an iron or tin pot used for melting the former will last much longer than for melting snow. The latter process causes it to become quickly pitted with spots of rust and perforated. Aluminium vessels last the longest. In the old days—i.e., prior to the establishments of trading posts—the Eskimos had no utensils of any sort except those of native manufacture from bone, or stone, or ivory. Nowadays they have steel-tipped spears, iron nails, and tinware for cooking purposes.

Perhaps the next most important employment of the feminine portion of the community is the preparation [99]of skins, the softening of leather, and the finer animal tissues, the washing, drying, and stretching of gut, and the manufacture of the marvellously fine sinew used for sewing and stitchery. All this includes the making of tents and clothing. The old women help the housewives as far as they are able, and the girls watch and learn, with a view to rendering themselves eligible in the eyes of the young men as accomplished brides-to-be. The women are perpetually employed chewing the edges of skins and leathers to make them pliable and soft for sewing. This process tends to wear down the teeth to very unsightly stumps.

The heavy work is done by the hale and hearty, who leave only the lighter tasks, such as the tending of the lamps and the minding of the house, to the older folk. Womanlike all the world over, the crones love to get together and indulge in unlimited gossip. All the women, indeed, pay a constant round of visits, and gathering, now here, now there, sit about smiling and gossiping, as is their wont from the tropics to the pole.

The Eskimo are a genial, jovial, peaceable people, among whom quarrelling is a crime, and he or she who disturbs the general peace is a villain of the deepest dye. So, whatever else comes of all the gossip, it is not—in an Eskimo village—malevolence, backbiting and spite. They talk—these fur-clad, hard-working women—of their last year’s journeyings, who and what they saw and heard, of their trials and vexations, of their children and relations and [100]husbands—each one’s contribution to the conversation being punctuated by a chorus of “Ah, Ah’s,” “Elarle! Elarle!” (Indeed! Yes!) from the rest.

Suddenly, however, just when their enjoyment may be at its height, the children’s cry of “Kumokse! Kumokse! Netsérkpok!”—(A sled, a sled! He’s got a seal!) breaks up the gathering in excited confusion. There is a rush, each wife to her own home. Cries of joy and anticipation fill the air, and the whole village is stirred with cheerful and prosperous bustle. The hunters are returning, and fresh supplies are at hand. Very soon the cracking of the dog whips is heard, shouts of command, barks and howls; and the teams appear, scrambling over the sigjak (the broken ice along the shore), with their welcome loads. Quickly the harness is thrown off and safely bestowed, the lines and everything eatable being carried into the sukso; the dogs are fed and quieted, and curl round and go to sleep in the snow.

Then comes the evening meal. The stewpot is taken from the slings and set in front of the mistress of the igloo. The sturdy men and children crowd round her and each one is served with a generous piece of sealmeat. They hold it in their hands to eat. Each bronzed or wind-blackened face glows with enjoyment and contentment in the homely lamplight, and an atmosphere of unfeigned goodwill and cheer dominates the little group. The hungry folk whose husbands and fathers have not been successful all day simply distribute themselves through the [101]village, and share the food of the lucky. The captor of to-day may return empty handed to-morrow, when he may look for hospitality to his guests of to-night.

As soon as the meal in the pot is finished, the soup is poured out into a drinking bowl and handed round, each one taking a good pull in turn. The air soon reeks—the tight-packed assemblage of unwashed humanity, the stench of seal oil and blubber, the strong odours from the pot and the exhalations of garments spread out on the racks to dry, all contribute to the malodorous atmosphere. But what of that to those accustomed to nothing else, to whom the whole means warmth and plenty and the nearness of his own, in the frozen immensity of the awful arctic world without?

As soon as the meal is done the day’s catch of seals is cut up. Each animal is placed on its back on the floor, opened and dismembered, and pieces of the meat and blubber are given to the needy. Open hospitality is the law of the land in the Arctics. Travellers, whether native or European, are always sure of welcome and shelter on reaching an Eskimo village. On these occasions the stranger is always the first to be served from the generous family stew.

This sanguinary and odoriferous business being despatched, and the neighbours having taken themselves off, the door is fixed for the night—the door being a slab of snow cut to fit the main entrance to the igloo, and set on one side during the day. The lamps are trimmed to a low flame, wet clothes are [102]spread on the drying frames above them, and each member of the family rolls up in a fur blanket on the sleeping bench and so goes to bed. Occasionally the mother wakes up, to trim the lamps and turn the clothes during the night. She will be the first to wake and rise in the morning, since it is part of the woman’s work “which is never done,” to rub and soften the leathern clothing of her good man and the boys, which had hardened in drying while they slept.

Before the advent of the white man and his methods, the Eskimo used to start a fire by means of “firesticks.” The writer has seen this done repeatedly at the present day. An oblong piece of wood with a depression made in it to hold the tinder (a mixture of dried moss and cotton plant), receives the spindle. Another small piece of wood, placed on top of the latter, is held in position by the teeth and pressed down firmly upon it. The spindle is made to rotate rapidly by means of a rough bow until a spark, caused by the friction, starts up in the tinder. This is gently blown to a flame, and the fire is kindled. Nowadays, steel, or pieces of iron, are used in place of the driftwood board and spindle, especially on hunting expeditions; for although matches have found their way into the Eskimo igloo, they are costly, and apt to get damp.

There seems to be a happy sort of sex equality among these people, or perhaps it should rather be said that a mutually agreeable division of equally essential labours cause the men and women to live [103]more on a common footing than they seem to do among many other uncivilised folk. Old women, widows, and orphan girls, never want for protection and sustenance, so long as the rest can shelter and support them. The Eskimo are a very improvident people, never taking thought for the hungry morrow when they can feast to-day; but so long as the good things last, so long as they are to be had, the old and helpless of both sexes are never neglected. If a time should come when there arises a question of superfluous mouths to fill, the old people go into a sort of voluntary retreat in their own houses, and willingly die the death of starvation. More will be said on this subject elsewhere.

On one dreadful occasion an Eskimo woman was betrayed by force of circumstances into an act of cannibalism. This woman was a tall, commanding figure from the south coast, with a grave, intelligent face. She was an excellent huntress, equally at home with gun or spear. She could wield her needle, too, and together with her husband, was a first-rate worker and much respected by all the tribe.

A party of women, including herself and her baby, were travelling to a trading station. Their sled was well provisioned and their dogs in good condition, and the route lay over mountains and valleys, and across all the intervening fiords and bays. Soon after they started things began to go wrong. The weather changed and a wind got up, bearing snow. Storm after storm swept the country, through which the [104]travellers could scarcely force their way. The dogs sank to their shoulders in the deep drift, and at last could make no further progress at all. The little expedition called a halt. They built a sleeping place and prepared to wait till the violence of the weather abated. But, as day after day went howling by, each as impossible as the last, the stock of rations became exhausted, and the whole party reached the verge of starvation.

The Eskimo woman from the south fell ill, in consequence of the hardships and privations, and lost consciousness. While she happened to be in this state, a council was held by the others of the party, who decided to keep life going by killing and eating the child. This was accordingly done, and as soon as she could be partially roused, a portion was given to the famished mother. Not knowing what it was she did, she ate the meat—and survived. Some time afterwards the forlorn band was rescued by some hunters and taken to their camp, and only then the woman learnt the truth about her supposedly dead baby. Years after the horrible thing occurred the writer met her and had the story from her own lips.

Women and their adventures figure largely in Eskimo folk tales. One of them might almost point to a feminist movement in the Arctics! Two brides, it is narrated, ran away from their homes before their very first children ever saw the light. After awhile the fathers went in search of their lost daughters. When the girls found they were discovered they wept [105]bitterly, and declared themselves most unwilling to return to their husbands. The fathers, however, were quite relieved to find them comfortably off where they were, and having stayed a couple of “sleeps” in their daughters’ house, returned home without the brides. When they got back to the tribe they had this amazing thing to tell—that two women without the company of any men, lived happily all by themselves, and were never in want!

There is a charming little story of a lonely woman who owned a bear cub, and loved it and brought it up like a child and called it her son. The bear repaid her devotion, and supported her by his prowess in hunting so well that the rest of the villagers grew jealous and planned to kill him. So, conscious of their evil designs, he departed, almost as much to the grief of the children of the village as to that of his “mother.” He never ceased, however, to repay her love, and continued out on the ice floes to catch seals for her support.

The gruesome story of the murderess Toodlânak has never hitherto—so far as the writer can ascertain—been included in any ethnologist’s collection of the Eskimo legends.

It is narrated by the Ancient Ones that there lived this Toodlânak, who was an evil spirit in female disguise. She had a large house (igloovegak) built by the side of the route used by hunters going inland after deer. It was far up country, many days’ journey either from the sea or from the pastures of the interior. [106]The house was large and comfortable, and Toodlânak had a reputation for hospitality. She loved to entertain any who passed that way and to give them food and shelter for the night. She allotted to them the best rugs and the most comfortable part of the sleeping bench. Presently, however, it began to be noticed that few if any of these hunters returned. At last the brother of one of these inexplicably missing men determined to look into things. He started out with a companion, and in due course both reached the half-way house. Out came Toodlânak, as usual, all smiles and amiability, inviting them to enter and refresh and rest themselves there for the night. They did so, but the suspicious young man kept his wits about him, and never relaxed a sharp look-out on his hostess. He had a notion that she knifed her guests in their slumber.

Unknown to Toodlânak, he secreted a flat stone within the bosom of his tunic (the netseak), and, rolling himself in his blanket, lay flat on his back apparently in deep sleep. His hostess had also retired to rest, and seemed also quite dead to the world. But, about midnight, he saw her rise by the dim light of the lamp, and creep over to his companion where he also lay asleep on the bench. The movement betrayed the fact that the awful creature had a knife-like tail with which she struck her victim through the chest and killed him. She then crept stealthily towards the watcher, and would have served him the same way but that he was ready for her. The vicious tail struck, [107]indeed, at his chest, but shivered on the hidden stone, broke off, and left Toodlânak defenceless. The hunter sprang up and killed her on the spot. He searched all over the place, and found the remains of innumerable victims, and their property hoarded away. He broke down the house, buried his luckless companion, and returned home with the news that at last the country was ridded of its pest and might be safely travelled. [108]